Translation of field notes for developmental study of chimpanzee vocal communication

PI(s):

Frans Plooij (International Research-institute on Infant Studies)

Start Date:

22-Mar-2010

End Date:

22-Apr-2010

Keywords:

Many researchers are interested in chimpanzee vocal communication, both as an important aspect of chimpanzee social behavior and as a source of insights into the evolution of human language. Nonetheless, very little is known about how chimpanzee vocal communication develops from infancy to adulthood. The largest dataset of recordings from free-living immature chimpanzees was recorded by the late Dr. Hetty van de Rijt-Plooij and me at Gombe National Park, Tanzania (1971-73) but as these recordings were collected along with a large amount of other data, they have not yet been analyzed. In order to make this dataset available to more researchers, I will translate and transcribe the original notes on the contexts of the calls from Dutch into English.